Service providers and carriers of all shapes and sizes badly want to move from a PSTN-based system to an all-IP world with SIP interconnections, enabling seamless end-to-end HD voice calling, video calling, and other powerful business and consumer applications. However, it is early days for higher-level SIP interoperability, with a few upstart service providers offering it, others talking about building their own IP peering fabric and Sprint offering the promise of it in the future.

Complicating matters in the the HD voice world are numerous speech codecs and the necessity to translate between PSTN-grade service, G.722 for HD voice in the broadband and enterprise worlds, AMR-WB for mobile HD voice services in Europe, and the independence of Skype’s SILK codec just to make life even more interesting.

After years of sitting on the sidelines, HD Voice is poised to become The Next Big Thing in VoIP.

A majority of IP handsets now support G.722, business VoIP providers from Alteva to Simple Signal are already offering HD voice service, 8x8 has deployed over 70,000 HD voice handsets, and Verizon installed almost 5,000 Polycom HD voice at their corporate headquarters. In Europe, France Telecom has over a half million HD voice users on broadband and has started offering mobile HD voice service in Moldova; BT, Telecom Italia, and T-Mobile are all jumping on the bandwagon.

Providing two to six times more audio fidelity over a regular PSTN call, HD voice delivers richer presence, a better, more relaxing experience for conference calls including the ability to clearly identify individual speakers, improved comprehension in multi-language calls, and a friendlier, more accurate environment for voice recognition and speech-to-text services.

Rich Poole, Business Development Director, has been with Dialogic for over 2 years where he is responsible for indentifying, developing and structuring strategic sales relationships with key global accounts.

Prior to that role, Rich was a Technical Account Manager where he owned the technical relationship with customers to architect VoIP solutions that meet the customers communications needs in service provider, enterprise and converged networks. Rich has over 28 years of experience in the telecommunications industry. Prior to Dialogic, Rich was Director of Business Development at AudioCodes for 7 years where he provided business development, product strategy and product marketing to initiate and drive AudioCodes’ system-based media gateways into wireless, cable and wireline markets.

Prior to that, he worked at Motorola Cellular Infrastructure Group for over 18 years where he had various careers, from switch software development, to building a top notch International Bid & Quote department.

Doug MohneyEditor-in-Chief,
HD Voice News, DougonIPComm

Tuned into the HD communications space as Editor-in-Chief of HD Voice News, Doug Mohney has clocked over 20 years in the ICT arena between working in real-world businesses and writing about them.

He has contributed for a diverse group of publications over the past dozen years, covering telecommunications, wireless and spectrum issues, the Internet, and online video. Most recently, he served at Editor in Chief of the Telecom and Digital Media Group at an online publication and Editor-in-Chief at VON Magazine (the pulvermedia incarnation).

Doug’s hands-on/real-world experience includes stints at two high-tech start-up companies. Joining DIGEX as employee number 10 in 1993, he had a ring-side seat to the trials and tribulations of a fast growing, VC-funded startup doing the boom growth years of the Internet. He can be reached at dmohney@hdvoicenews.com.

Martyn Davies Director of Technology, Dialogic

Martyn has over 20 years experience in computer-based communications. He started as a software engineer with data networking and LANs 80s , and was there for the birth of the Internet and the widespread adoption of TCP/IP. While Martyn continued through a career in engineering, support, sales and marketing, his friend “TCP/IP “ used its bridgehead in the data world to become the most successful technology in voice and video communications too.

Today, Martyn is Director of Technology at Dialogic, focusing his efforts largely on mobile video and high-definition audio. In the next decade, mobile promises to vastly outpace every other form of communication, and Martyn is looking forward to many surprising new uses for this most personal device.